The T-Generation

We are supposed to express a major thought, a feeling (or more than one) in 140 characters. Or less, of course, as less is more.

I also use Twitter – in case someone wants to follow things, related almost exclusively to Internet public policy, they are free to follow @veni.

But you won’t see me tweeting all day long. Even from a conference, where governments and businesses decide the future of that same T-Generation.

For whatever reasons, I believe that people need more than 140 characters, in order to understand each other. In fact, they need more than 140 words, or 140 sentences.

While a picture may be worth a 1000 words, as Arthur Brisbane said in 1911, I wouldn’t mind exchanging a thousand words with you, my friends.

In our desire to make life simpler, we are running away from not only basic skills of education and upbringing, but of understanding life as social networking, as a communication between individuals. Instead, we face the effects of the T-Generation, where 140 characters can “go viral”.

Since when do we replace the hug with an “o”, and the kiss with an “x”, so that life is easier, or – as it seems proper – simpler?
Now, I understand that we don’t want to have too complicated of a life, and we try to simplify things in general. But this is the effect of becoming victims of the 140 characters’ mindsets.

The fear that we are running constantly late is so deep today, that many people just don’t understand how instead of pursuing happiness, they are pursuing their own death; sometimes in comfortable, sometimes in not so comfortable conditions. And it is because of this fear, that the T-Generation seems more and more relevant. People count followers, tweets, re-tweets, favorites, etc. Statistics, which shows nothing else than just one thing – that the author has found the spot in the T-Generation, which triggers the mouse click.

I know real people, good people, who are using Facebook, and Instagram, and Twitter, and other tools, to talk to people like them, who live across the globe.
These real people don’t need their postings to be viral.
They only need their friends to see that they are alive, and kicking, and writing, and thinking, and creating new stuff.

Not sure about you, my readers, but I am in for more than 140 characters. I want to hear more than a tweet from my friends, and from the people I respect, and from the people I love.

I want to read a thousand words, and see a picture.
I want to make my own mind, based on the factual information I read. And not the other way around – to accept someone’s mind, and make up my own facts.

Not sure what you want, but if you are in the journey, where people like facts, and share observations and not opinions, then you are not alone – I am with you.